The Duke Fights Back Against Scathing Reviews

I don’t know how many of you have been keeping up with The Duke’s long awaited return, (well, long awaited for some, I would’ve been content with waiting indefinitely) but the fourteen years many fans spent waiting for the game don’t seem to have been justified. I got a fair share of hate for pointing out how repulsive the game looked to me, and based on the comments I received from many Duke fans who didn’t mind giving me a piece of their mind, I’m thinking there are a few Duke fans among Dead Pixels’ readers. And just to clear things up, I too enjoyed the Duke and his irreverent ways, but that was fourteen years ago, and I was eight.

But that’s not the point here. Instead we’re going to take a look at a lesson in Public Relations 101: What Not to Use Your Twitter Account for. After seeing the dreadful reviews Duke Nukem Forever has been receiving since it’s release (to give you an idea of how bad it is the game currently stands at a 49 on Metacritic, averaged from 41 reviews at the time of this writing) the game’s PR firm, The Redner Group decided to take action. Head past the break so we can have a few laughs at someone’s expense. It would seem The Redner Group took a look at the negative responses to The Duke and decided they were a little too harsh, so in retaliation they decided to post a response to the critics who negatively reviewed their game. The tweet, which you can see below, has since been deleted, but thankfully the quick thinking lads and ladettes over at Ars Technica captured it before it was removed.

It’s not uncommon for a critic to be blacklisted after lambasting a game in their review; why would you spend time and money sending a review copy to a critic or site that probably won’t give your game a positive review? But tweeting to the world that fact is an incredibly dumb move. And in a followup tweet, “Bad scores are fine. Venom filled reviews…that’s completely different,” they continued. Now I really, really want to review this game, but don’t worry Duke fans, I won’t. I feel it would be far too venomous.

So, I have to ask: has anyone gotten the game, and more importantly, is anyone actually enjoying it? Don’t worry if you say yes to the latter, there’s no accounting for poor taste.